Part 5

All things proceed as though the stage were set For acts arranged. I have not learned the part, The day enacts itself. I take the tube, Find daylight at Jamaica, know the place Through some rehearsal, all the country know Which glides along the window, is not seen For definite memory. At Oyster Bay A taxi stands in readiness; in a trice We circle strips of water, slopes of hills, Climb where a granite wall supports a hill, A mass of blossoms, ripening berries, too, And enter at a gate, go up a drive, Shadowed by larches, cedars, silver willows. This taxi just ahead is in the play, Is here in life as I had seen it in The crystal of prevision, reaches first The porte cochere. This moment from the door Comes Roosevelt, and greets the man who leaves The taxi just ahead, then waits for me, Puts a strong hand that softens into mine, And says, O, this is bully!

We go in. He leaves my antecessor in a room Somewhere along the hall, and comes to me Who wait him in the roomy library. How are those lovely daughters? Oh, by George! I thought I might forget their names, I know-- It's Madeline and Marcia. Yes, you know Corinne adores the picture which you sent Of Madeline--your boy, too? In the war! That's bully--tea is coming--we must talk, I have five hundred things to ask you--set The tea things on this table, Anna--now, Do you take sugar, lemon? O, you smoke! I'll give you a cigar.

The talk begins. He's dressed in canvas khaki, flannel shirt, Laced boots for farming, chopping trees, perhaps; A stocky frame, curtains of skin on cheeks Drained slightly of their fat; gash in the neck Where pus was emptied lately; one eye dim, And growing dimmer; almost blind in that. And when he walks he rolls a little like A man whose youth is fading, like a cart That rolls when springs are old. He is a moose, Scarred, battered from the hunters, thickets, stones; Some finest tips of antlers broken off, And eyes where images of ancient things Flit back and forth across them, keeping still A certain slumberous indifference Or wisdom, it may be.

But then the talk! Bronze dolphins in a fountain cannot spout More streams at once: Of course the war, the emperor, America in the war, his sons in France, The dangers, separation, let them go! The fate has been appointed--to our task, Live full our lives with duty, go to sleep! For I say, he exclaims, the man who fears To die should not be born, nor left to live. It's Celtic poetry, free verse. He says: You nobly celebrate in your Spoon River The pioneers, the soldiers of the past, Why do you flout our Philippine adventure? No difference, Colonel, in the stock, the difference Lies in the causes. Well, another stream: Mark Hanna, Quay and others, what I hate, He says to me, is the Pharisee--I can stand All other men. And you will find the men So much maligned had gentle qualities, And noble dreams. Poor Quay, he loved the Indians, Sent for me when he lay there dying, said, Look after such a tribe when I am dead. I want to crawl upon a sunny rock And die there like a wolf. Did he say that, Colonel, to you? Yes! and you know, a man Who says a thing like that has in his soul An orb of light to flash that meaning forth Of heroism, nature.

Time goes on, The play is staged, must end; my taxi comes In half an hour or so. Before it comes, Let's walk about the farm and see my corn. A fellow on the porch is warming heels As we go by. I'll see him when you go, The Colonel says.

The rail fence by the corn Is good to lean on as we stand and talk Of farming, cattle, country life. We turn, Sit for some moments in a garden house On which a rose vine clambers all in bloom, And from this hilly place look at the strips Of water from the bay a mile beyond, Below some several terraces of hills Where firs and pines are growing. This resembles A scene in Milton that I've read. He knows, Catches the reminiscence, quotes the lines--and then Something of country silence, look of grass Where the wind stirs it, mystical little breaths Coming between the roses; something, too, In Vulcan's figure; he is Vulcan, too, Deprived his shop, great bellows, hammer, anvil, Sitting so quietly beside me, hands Spread over knees; something of these evokes A pathos, and immediately in key With all of this he says: I have achieved By labor, concentration, not at all By gifts or genius, being commonplace In all my faculties.

Not all, I say. One faculty is not, your over-mind, Eyed front and back to see all faculties, Govern and watch them. If we let you state Your case against you, timid born, you say, Becoming brave, asthmatic, growing strong: No marksman, yet becoming skilled with guns; No gift of speech, yet winning golden speech; No gift of writing, writing books, no less Of our America to thrill and live-- If, as I say, we let you state your case Against you as you do, there yet remains This over-mind, and that is what--a gift Of genius or of what? By George, he says, What are you, a theosophist? I don't know. I know some men achieve a single thing, Like courage, charity, in this incarnation; You have achieved some twenty things. I think That this is going some for a man whose gifts Are commonplace and nothing else.

We rise And saunter toward the house--and there's the man Still warming heels; my taxi, too, has come. We are to meet next Wednesday in New York And finish up some subjects--he has thoughts How I can help America, if I drop This line or that a little, all in all.

* * * * *

But something happens; I have met a loss; Would see no one, and write him I am off. And on that Wednesday flashes from the war Say Quentin has been killed: we had not met If I had stayed to meet him.

So, good-by Upon the lawn at Sagamore was good-by, Master of Properties, you stage the scene And let us speak and pass into the wings! One thing was fitting--dying in your sleep-- A touch of Nature, Colonel, you who loved And were beloved of Nature, felt her hand Upon your brow at last to give to you A bit of sleep, and after sleep perhaps Rest and rejuvenation; you will wake To newer labors, fresher victories Over those faculties not disciplined As you desired them in these sixty years.

TO ROBERT NICHOLS

England has found another voice in you Of beauty and of truth, True to their soul, as you are true-- Singer and soldier, yet a youth.

Out of the trenches and the rage of blood, The hatred and the lies You, like a wounded sky-lark, in a flood Pour forth these melodies,

Of a spirit which has suffered, yet has soared Above the stench of hell and death's defeats. I look at you, as often I have pored On the death mask of Keats.

Or the face of him quickly and gladly going The waves of the sea under, To the land of man's unknowing, Or the land of wonder.

And the war had you! what can it give In return for souls like yours Mangled or blotted out?--who shall forgive The war while time endures?

Back of the shouting mob, the brazen bands, The soldiers marching well, Gangrene cries out and Rupert Brooke's hands Clutch in a hemorrhage of hell.

Yet you found God through this? through war, Through love found vision, perhaps peace? Keep them in your breast like the morning star-- May their light increase.

Waves on the sea's breast catch the light While the hollows between Are dark--you are a wave whose height Is smitten by the Light unseen,

Urged by the Sea's power to the glory Of the christening sun. When the calm comes and darkness, transitory Be your doubt, or none.

These words from me who have the hard way traveled Of pain and thought, In a weaving never wholly unraveled, Or wholly wrought,

For your spirit and your songs, gladness For the hope of you, and praise To life, who gave you out of the world's madness In these our days.

BONNYBELL: THE BUTTERFLY

As I shall die, let your belief Find in these words too poor and brief My soul's essential self.

My grief Down to the day I knew you locks Its secret word in paradox: I who loved truth could not be true, Could only love the truth and glow With words of truth who loved it so, Even while I dishonored you. I who loved constancy was false, And heeded but in part the calls Of loveliness for love and you. I am but half of that I hoped, And that half hardly more than words I cheered my soul with as it groped: As from their bowers of rain the birds Sing feebly, pining for the sun. As I am all of this, by fate Lose what I could so well have won, Life leaves me half articulate, My failure, nature half-expressed, Or wholly hidden in my breast. Yes, dear, the secret of me lies Where words scarce come to analyze. Yet who knows why he is this or that? What moves, defeats him, works him ill? What blood ancestral of the bat Narrows his music to the shrill Squeak of a flitting thing that hunts For gnats, which never singing, fronts The full moon flooding down the vale, The perfect soul, the nightingale!

You have wooed music all your life, And I have sought for love. I think My soul was marked, dear, by a wife Who loved a man immersed in drink, Who crushed her love which would not die. If this be true, my soul's great thirst Was blended with a fault accursed. My mother's love is my soul's cry. My father's vileness, lies and lusts, His cruel heart, inconstancy That kept my mother with the crusts Of life to gnaw, are in my blood. My rainbow wings I scarce can loose, Or if I free them, there's the mud That weighs and mars their use.

You have wooed music. But suppose The hampered hours and poverty Broke down your spirit's harmony, Then if you found you could achieve The music in you, if you could But pick a pocket or deceive, Which would you call the greater good-- The music or a sin withstood? Suppose you passed a window where The violin of your despair Lay ready for your hands! At last You stole it as you hurried past, And hid it underneath your rags Until you reached your attic room, Then tuned the strings and burned the tags. And drew the bow till lyric fire Should all your thieving thoughts consume: In such case what is your desire-- The music or the violin? And what in such case is your sin? And if they caught you in your theft, Would you, just to be honest, dear, Forefront your thief-self as your deft And dominant genius, or the ear Which tortured you?

Would you not say, Music intrigues me night and day? My soul is the musician's. First In my soul's love is music. Would You falsify to keep your good? Deny your theft, or put the worst Construction on your soul, obscure Thereby your soul's investiture Of music's gift and music's lure? If you were flame you would pretend What you would fain be to the end, Keep your good name and keep as well The violin. May this not be In some realm an integrity?

Now for myself, dear, though I lack The gift of utterance to explain My life's pursuit and passion, pain, Or why I acted thus, concealed Thoughts that you hold were best revealed, Your eyes to heal themselves must track And find my soul's way in its quest Followed from girlhood without rest. Music is not its hope, but love.... And I saw somehow I could lift My life through you, and rise above What I had been. And since your gift Of love saw me as truthful, true I kept that best side to your view, And hoped to be what you desired If I but struggled, still aspired. And as for lapses, even while I fooled you with the wanton's smile, He was my lover till you came To light my life with purer flame. Was it, beloved, so great a sin? He was a practice violin. Oh, how I knew this when your strings Sang to me afterward when I slept Upon your breast again. I wept, Do you remember? I was grieving Neither for him, nor your deceiving, Rather (how strange is life) that he Was prelude to your harmony; Rather that while I walked with him, With you I found the cherubim, Left my old self at last with wings, Saw beauty clear where it was dim Before through my imaginings.

Do you suppose the primrose knows What skill adds petals to its crown? How many failures laugh and frown Upon the hand that crosses, sows? The hand is ignorant of the power Obedient in the primrose flower To the hand's skill that toils to add New petals till the flower be clad In fuller glory. What's the bond Between us two, that I respond To what you are? Nor do you know What lies within me fain to grow Under your hand.

But if the worm Should call itself the butterfly, Since it will soon become one, I Better to be myself affirm That I am Beauty, Truth--for you I would be Beauty, Truth, imbue Your life with love and loveliness. And you can make me Beauty, Truth, And I can bring you soul success If you but train my flower whose youth Still may be governed, keep erect My hope in this poor earthen sod. I think this is a task which God Appoints for us. We may neglect The task in this life, but to find It is a task we leave behind, Only to meet it, till we see Our fate worked out in lives to be.

O, from my lesser self to spread My golden wings above your head, Through love of love and you discard The sting, the rings of green, the shard. Oh, to be Psyche, passion tried Through flesh, desire, purified! Love is my lode-star, music yours-- Souls must go where the lode-star lures.

HYMN TO AGNI

God of fire, God of the flame of our love, Beyond whose might no God is, And none in the realm of birth, Agni! Adored one, May we never suffer in thy friendship!

Thou, who art re-born each day, And whose symbol is the sacred drill Wherewith fire is made for the temple, Morning by morning, Freshly create our love as the sun awakes, Preserve our love, O Agni!

The crocuses, the dandelions, The golden forsythia Perished in May. But roses burn on the altar of earth, Bridal blossoms, whitest of fire, Dance in the winds of June. Agni, remember us, Remember our love!

We have prayed to you, powerful one-- Thou whose name is first In the first of the sacred hymns; Thou to whom sacrifices pass To the Gods, thou messenger of the Gods, Thou who art born a little lower than the most high Indra Hast heard our prayer-- Hear still our prayer: Abide with us, O Agni, and befriend; Make our hearts as temples, And our desire as the drill, Wherewith fire is created For the sacred sacrifice of love, And for a light to our spirits-- Turn not away from our prayers, O Agni!

Here before the fire of the Sun of June Kneeling Hand in hand, Our eyes closed before the splendor of your spirit Hear our prayer, O Agni: May we never suffer in thy friendship.

EPITAPH FOR US

One with the turf, one with the tree As we are now, you soon shall be, As you are now, so once were we.

The hundred years we looked upon Were Goethe and Napoleon. Now twice a hundred years are gone,

And you gaze back and contemplate, Lloyd George and Wilson, William's hate, And Nicholas of the bloody fate;

Us, too, who won the German war, Who knew less what the strife was for Than you, now that the conqueror

Lies with the conquered. You will say: "Here sleep the brave, the grave, the gay, The wise, the blind, who lost the way."

But for us English, for us French, Americans who held the trench, You will not grieve, though the rains drench

The hills and valleys, being these. Who pities stocks, or pities trees? Or stones, or meadows, rivers, seas?

We are with nature, we have grown At one with water, earth, and stone-- Man only is separate and alone,

Earth sundered, left to dream and feel Illusion still in pain made real, The hope a mist, but fire the wheel.

But what was love, and what was lust, Memory, passion, pain or trust, Returned to clay and blown in dust,

Is nature without memory-- Yet as you are, so once were we, As we are now, you soon shall be,

Blind fellows of the indifferent stars Healed of your bruises, of your scars In love and living, in the wars.

Come to us where the secret lies Under the riddle of the skies, Surrender fingers, speech, and eyes.

Sink into nature and become The mystery that strikes you dumb, Be clay and end your martyrdom.

Rise up as thought, the secret know. As passionless as stars bestow Your glances on the world below,

As a man looks at hand or knee. What is the turf of you, what the tree? Earth is a phantom--let it be.

BOTTICELLI TO SIMONETTA

I would give you all my heart, and I have given All my heart to you to have and keep With your heart, where my heart has found its heaven In a light immortal, and a peace like sleep. Here is my heart, for you to have and treasure, Your woman's heart will treasure it, For a love that only love may find a measure, And only love like yours can measure it.

In absence and in separation praying Before your love, my heart receive, My heart which kneels to you, so gently laying Hands of deep prayer, too reverent to grieve For lives divided, yet compassionate, As my poor heart is pitiful for yours. These hearts of ours, that know so deep a fate, Even as a heart that silently endures, Lie on an altar of consuming fire, Our hearts together, taking life thereof. Ashes must come of two hearts which aspire To God, who has given love.

FLOWER IN THE GARDEN

Flower in the garden, Wholly itself and free, Yearning and joyous, Breathing its charm To the passer-by On the sighing air-- Beloved flower! Flower desired for something beyond Itself as a flower; Giving the promise of ecstasy Beyond its own being, Its place in the garden-- A shadowed flame Of an absolute!

Flower that I have taken From its place in the garden To realize the ultimate Beauty; Flower in the vase at my side, Breathing a sweeter life Into the air I breathe, A spirit that makes me faint, Sorrowful with a strange languor. Flower no less beautiful, But revealing an essence That changes my flower. O, my flower that is with me but lost, Lost in the disclosure of other hues, Other scents!

Flower of passion, flower of love, Flower that I have won and lost, Mystical flower!

INEXORABLE DEITIES

Deities! Inexorable revealers, Give me strength to endure The gifts of the Muses, Daughters of Memory. When the sky is blue as Minerva's eyes Let me stand unshaken; When the sea sings to the rising sun Let me be unafraid; When the meadow lark falls like a meteor Through the light of afternoon, An unloosened fountain of rapture, Keep my heart from spilling Its vital power; When at the dawn The dim souls of crocuses hear the calls Of waking birds, Give me to live but master the loveliness. Keep my eyes unharmed from splendors Unveiled by you, And my ears at peace Filled no less with the music Of Passion and Pain, growth and change.

* * * * *

But O ye sacred and terrible powers, Reckless of my mortality, Strengthen me to behold a face, To know the spirit of a beloved one Yet to endure, yet to dare!

ARIELLE

Arielle! Arielle! Gracious and fanciful, Laughing and joyous! Arielle girlish, queenly, majestical; Deep eyed for memory, Pensive for dreams. Arielle crowned with the light of thought, Mystical, reverent, Musing on the splendor of life, And the blossom of love Pressed into her hands-- Arielle!

Music awakes in the hall! Shadowy pools and glistening willows, And elfin shapes amid silver shadows Are made into sound! Arielle listens with hidden eyes, Sitting amid her treasures, A presence like a lamp of alabaster, A yearning gardenia That broods in a shaft of light... Arielle clapping hands and running About her rooms, Arranging cloths of gold and jars of crystal, And vases of ruby cloisonne. Arielle matching blues and reds: Pomegranates, apples in bowls of jade. Arielle reposing, lost in Plato, In the contemplation of Agni. Arielle, the cup to her lips, A laughing Thalia! Arielle!

The breath of morning moves through the casement window-- Arielle taking the cool of it on her brow, And the ecstasy of the robin's song into her heart. Arielle in prayer at dawn Laying hands upon secret powers: Lead me in the path of love to my love. Arielle merging the past and the present, As light increases light-- Arielle adored-- Arielle!

SOUNDS OUT OF SORROW

Of all sounds out of the soul of sorrow These I would hear no more: The cry of a new-born child at midnight; The sound of a closing door,

That hushes the echo of departing feet When the loneliness of the room Is haunted with the silence Of a dead god's tomb;

The songs of robins at the white dawn, Since I may never see The eyes they waked in the April Now gone from me;

Music into whose essence entered The soul of an hour:-- A face, a voice, the touch of a hand, The scent of a flower.

MOURNIN' FOR RELIGION

Brothers and sisters, I'm mournin' for religion, But I can't get religion, it's my woman interferin'. I sing and I pray, and I'm real perseverin', But I can't get religion, That's all I have to say. I know there is a fountain, a Jesus, a comforter, A heaven, a Jerusalem, a day of Pentecost, Salvation for the wishin', blood for sin's remission, A covenant, a promise for souls that are lost. But I can't get religion, the salvation feelin', The vision of the Lamb, forgiveness and healin'. I have a sort of numbness When I see the mourners kneelin'. I have a kind of dumbness When the preacher is appealin'. I have a kind of wariness, even contrariness, Even while I'm fearin' The bottomless pit and the shut gates of heaven. It's my woman interferin'--

For you see when they say: Come to the mercy seat, come, come, The spirit and the bride Say come, come, I think of my woman who bore so many children; I think of her a cookin' for harvesters in summer; I think of her a lyin' there, a dyin' there, the neighbors Who came in to fan her and how she never murmured; And then I seem to grow number and number, And something in me says: Why didn't Jesus help her for to die, Why did Jesus always pass her by, Let her break her health down as I was growing poorer, Let her lie and suffer with no medicine to cure her, I wouldn't treat a stray dog as Jesus acted to her. If these are devil words, I'm a child of the devil. And this is why I'm dumb As the spirit and the bride say come!